


King of the Mountain, Long Way to Fall

by Traumedic



Category: Animaniacs
Genre: Angst, Anxious Yakko, Character Study, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Please find these three some parents, Yakko Warner needs therapy challenge, a tad slowish to really really start but, especially given their drawn ages with no parents and, let Dot Warner have like 50 cats challenge, they are actors and such so..., you can't expect these three to have the best coping machanisms, you've seen it a 100 times now this makes 101.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29194953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traumedic/pseuds/Traumedic
Summary: Yakko recalls his moment of open weakness when dealing with Nickelwise and contemplates his place within the Warner sibling trio, little does he know, he's not the only one who questions just how well they belong within their Warner Siblings microcosm.
Relationships: Dot Warner & Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	King of the Mountain, Long Way to Fall

_”You guys think I’m funny, right?!”_ Yakko’s plaintive cry from the night previous had haunted him nonstop since the very moment it had slipped off his tongue, knelt on the ground in front of his two younger siblings. 

Even now, as he sat at the table in the water tower, his current project long forgotten, he couldn’t stop hearing himself say it over and over and **over** again; on top of that, there was a ringing in his ears behind his own voice’s inner mantra. Yakko clenched his fists, not even realizing he was near snapping the pen in his left hand, he _really_ didn’t need to ruin another pair of his immaculate white gloves and draw attention to himself, and yet... 

He was the older brother, the _eldest_ Warner sibling. He hid any and all emotions under a beguiling smile and a sharp wit that distracted from what was really running through his mind. As old as he was—Yakko snorted at that thought, still technically a fourteen-year-old and yet he’d seen decades pass—deflecting inquisitive and _invasive_ questions regarding himself and his siblings was done without a second thought. He was more deflection and sharp humor than himself sometimes. If he were to be turned into an object, it would be a mirror. 

So why did he get so shaken up by something so _stupid_? 

What? No one could listen to his lame jokes? No one was around to bounce his one-liners off of? So what? 

He wished he could say ‘so what’ and _mean_ it. 

The silence in the abandoned building had been deafening. Alone in a dark office in the midst of Halloween night? What was he? An _IT_ guy? 

Humor was his preferred coping mechanism, his metaphorical armor **and** weapon. But there was no one around to appreciate it, no one close enough to be annoyed when he made a quip at their expense or even give the smallest of laughs to reinforce that, _yes, Yakko Warner was as funny as he ~~hoped and~~ thought he was._

As much as being alone had begun to chip at his psyche, he hadn’t started to feel _true_ desperation claw at him, sinking its frigid claws into his lungs, making it almost impossible to pull in a true lung-full of air, until Nickelwise had been spotted, sitting atop a rolling chair. 

The image of Nickelwise’s slow blinking, the blank, unimpressed stare from those deviated pupils of his, would be burned into Yakko’s memory until the end of time itself. The harder Yakko had tried to get him to do something, **anything** , switching from humor to pleading to outright anger, _”Come on, say something! **React!** ”_ the more that it felt like his lungs didn’t want to expand in the slightest, like an anvil was sitting atop his chest, the more his heartrate had skyrocketed. Things had gone fuzzy around the edges not long after he’d ended up **literally** tongue-tied—being a toon was a blessing and a curse, and in that moment, it was a curse. 

Speaking of tongue-tied... 

What would Yakko Warner be without his humor? Or even more terrifying to him: without his toptier **intellect**? 

Where did he stand as a _Warner sibling_ if he no longer could keep a ~~half-~~ step ahead of Dot with wit and be able to ~~mostly~~ keep pace with Wakko’s more physical humor? 

Would he, even as the eldest, be left behind by his siblings one day if he became old and stale with his humor? If he stopped being such a voracious reader? 

He couldn’t see Wakko and Dot doing it with any conscious thought. As much as they could be, and this was pulled from the mouths of millennials who watched their officially rebooted show, _gremlins_ they still cared for each other. 

Wakko was less verbose and more physical about it. As ‘wacky’ as he was, the middle child was a good listener, perceptive as hell, and—if one was patient enough—he had truly hilarious quips of his own. He just wasn’t quite as quick on the draw as Yakko or Dot, something the studio only made more dramatic in their show. Their comedy was more rapidfire, and even with the best writing, they preferred to let Wakko’s physical form of comedy do most of the talking for him. 

And Dot.... She had a whole _thing_ against being truly soft and vulnerable in front of anyone other than the two of them—and even then, it was hit or miss. She despised even the slightest possibility of being perceived as the overdone and cliché _weak and overly emotional and tearful damsel_ , as if that would ever apply to his baby sister. 

Both in their show and in their day-to-day lives Yakko was the oldest, debatably the most mature, and his siblings listened to him...to a degree. Sometimes, most often in the nineties when their show was going strong, the lines sometime blurred between the show and their downtime. 

Still, show or not, he felt beholden to be...what? The _best_? Yes and no. He **loved** watching his siblings shine. He felt immense pride when he saw Wakko and Dot succeed in their respective endeavors. Yakko wouldn’t call himself ‘parental’ by any stretch of the imagination, but he wondered if this was comparable to a parent’s pride. What did they have to juxtapose it with, anyway? They’d never had parents, neither drawn to go alongside them or anyone that really filled that respective role in their day-to-day. 

Well, Scratchansniff _tried_ , but by then it was too little, too late, they’d been burned by other adults before, and had moreover decided to stay within their own little microcosm, to a degree. The three of them were as thick as thieves, and as well-meaning as the studio’s P-psychiatrist was, he wasn’t a _Warner_. 

Speaking of Scratchy, there was no way Yakko could ever, _ever_ give him the slightest inkling of what had happened last night. If he did, the human would only latch onto it and never give Yakko a moment of peace in his life until he finally wore the eldest sibling down into talking about it. 

If Yakko wasn’t going to divulge the truth to Wakko and Dot: _he hadn’t felt quite so low, so scared, so **desperate** in his life in as long as he could remember_, then he certainly wasn’t going to go to Scratchansniff and do it in a willing capacity. He didn’t need therapy. He was fine. 

Maybe if he repeated that enough it would begin to stick and he’d begin to believe it. 

“ **Yakko!** ” Dot’s voice pulled Yakko from his downward spiral with a start. The oldest sibling turned to look at the youngest, based on her current pose: hands on her hips, brows furrowed, one foot tapping, and the annoyance that rang from the utterance of his name alone, it wouldn’t have surprised him if this wasn’t the first time she’d called out to him. 

“Yes, Sister-of-mine?” Yakko was quick to put on an effortless smile, even in front of his sister he still felt like he was putting on a show, at least on a smaller scale. Was it fair or right? No. Did it save him from having to lay his soul bare to varying ends? Yes. So, to him, it was more than worth it. 

“Don’t _’Sister-of-mine'_ me.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for _ten minutes_!” 

They both knew it was an exaggeration. Dot was a lot of things, but patient was not one of them. 

Yakko snorted, “Ten **whole** minutes? Uh huh, I believe that.” He very much did not, and he enjoyed the obvious irritation it caused his sister, easily denoted by the angry flicking of her tail, the slight fluffing of her fur. 

Dot huffed, giving a dramatic flip of the fur that curled upward on her head. “That’s not the _real_ point I’m going after. You promised you were going to go with us to the pet store!” 

What was Dot’s sudden obsession with the pet store? Yakko couldn’t help but be bewildered by her odd request. She’d waited until they were going to bed, and as soon as Dot had asked to go, Wakko had eagerly tacked on that he wanted to go and _please, please, **pleaaaase** could they go?_

When Yakko had asked why she wanted to go, Dot had given a slight shrug, offered a cute smile, and had given the vague explanation of: _”I have to get a head start on my future, I want to look at the cats, especially!”_ She hadn’t been quite as amused as Yakko when the eldest sibling had explained getting a cat would be a bad idea when they had a brother like Wakko, to which the middle sibling had only glowered at them from his spot on the top bunk, the glare had lost its intimidating edge thanks to his tongue lolling out and the food crumbs that had covered his face. 

Yakko just assumed it had something to do with their Nickelwise encounter last night, and Yakko wasn’t going to pretend to understand, and, if he were honest, he was both jealous and relieved that Wakko and Dot didn’t seem anywhere near as upset as Yakko had been after dealing with Nickelwise. 

Unless they had been negatively affected and they were hiding it just like he was hiding his own misery. 

The thought made him pause, though, as he studied Dot’s face, he couldn’t see even a sliver of unease on his younger sister’s face. But was that because she was just that _good_ at hiding it or because she had been honest when she’d stated her own experience was ‘fabulous’ so there was nothing to be uneasy about? 

He was going to run himself in mental circles if he kept this up, it was already dizzying enough the way he was oscillating back and forth, wholly uncertain. 

Yakko stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Alright, you’re here, but where’s Wakko?” 

Dot smirked, and Yakko could tell she was getting ready to _gently_ insult their brother. “Why, he’s already there, of course! He’s one of the ‘exotic pets’ they tout.” 

Yep. Called it. 

“Dot,” Yakko’s tone was a touch more serious, though he couldn’t help an amused smile. His sister was funny, he wasn’t going to deny that. 

Dot rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too. “He’ll be here in a second. He’s getting a last second sugar fix with those _fancy donuts_ of his.” 

“As long as he doesn’t have a sugar crash.” Yakko’s smile only grew into a grin. 

“Hey, I don’t care because I’m no longer _Sugar Crash Marshall_ , all the responsibility is on **you** , Big Bro.” 

“Somebody has to bring actual quality and order to the mix.” Yakko placed a hand on his chest, the epitome of a dramatic older brother. 

Dot tilted her head slightly, a hand on her hip. “And you think that somebody is...you? _Please_ , don’t sprain your arm trying to pat yourself on the back.” 

“I don’t think you two can go five minutes without going back and forth.” Wakko interrupted their light debate as he approached them, brushing donut crumbs off of his sweater. 

“Don’t be so slow and we won’t have time to ‘go back and forth’.” Dot retorted, spinning on her heel to face the middle sibling. 

Wakko gave her a flat look. “That’s a lie and you both know it.” 

They did. Dot and Yakko gave a shrug that was so in sync without even trying that it was almost surreal to the middle child. The two of them were practically a facsimile of each other in situations like these. Once again there was an echo of, _Why had he been drawn so different from the two of them, why was he even there?_ in Wakko’s mind, but before it could truly take root, Yakko was motioning towards the door. 

“Come on, Sibs,” Yakko knew that if Wakko and Dot kept it up, they’d only end up frustrated with one another, and Wakko’s anger and frustration was next level. “the store won’t be open forever.” 

Yakko herded his younger siblings out the door, and was silently thankful for the distraction from his own mind. Not that he’d tell his siblings that. 

He didn’t want them realizing just how weak he really was, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to take a crack at this well-known scene, or at least the aftermath of it. There are much better works out there, but this one is mine lol  
> I want to try and do something not quite as angst-ridden as my other big two fics, but what can I say, I'm an angst writer first and a human being second so we'll see how that pans out haha  
> Thank you for using your valuable time to read this! Your kudos and comments give me life! :D


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